The score's already up at iTunes, will be buying it when I get home tonight. This falls well and clearly in my guilty pleasures camp first and foremost, but the heavy rhythmic scoring combined with exotic instruments and long tracks should prove a quite enjoyable and fitting score. Also loved the 'Arcade' track from Man of Steel, which was largely by Junkie XL, and this seems to be an exotic continuation of that sound.

Well, first of all I'd say the Bates one wasn't THAT bad, it just shouldn't have blatantly stolen Goldenthal's material and it suffers a bit from a bad album presentation. The fact that the Junkie XL release has longer tracks (so hopefully long sustained spropsive rhythms Junkie does so well) and doesn't seem to reprise any of the Bates score (so neither the stolen themes) seems to point towards a better listening experience. So, yeah, I'm quite excited about it, but as mentioned, haven't heard any full tracks yet. I'm just hoping for a bad-ass sound here with satisfying colors and themes.

Yeah, the exciting and most interesting thing about composers from other musical genres branching out to film scores is they usually bring some of their own sensibilities from their own musical background with it, bringing fresh techniques to the table. Let's hope it works this way for Junkie as well, instead of being too much influenced by Zimmer. I thought I clearly recognized him in some parts from Man of Steel, for instance in that Arcade track.

Exactly. Paul Oakenfold, The Chemical Brothers, M83, Underworld, Orbital, Arcade Fire, Daft Punk, Trent Reznor etc. -- I love all these imports on the film score scene! It would be a terribly stuffed and dusty scene if there was only the traditional symphonic Hollywood score.

Haven't heard it yet, but just ahead of probably lots of people questioning the sound and if it isn't just all synthetic (saw some of those over at iTunes), and for those who measure the quality of a score by the largeness of its orchestra, the following orchestra members are credited in the booklet:

BobdH wrote
Haven't heard it yet, but just ahead of probably lots of people questioning the sound and if it isn't just all synthetic (saw some of those over at iTunes), and for those who measure the quality of a score by the largeness of its orchestra, the following orchestra members are credited in the booklet:

Hans Zimmer's scores also credit a huge orchestra and come out the other end sounding exactly like his synth mockups, so this doesn't necessarily say anything.

Thor wrote
Exactly. Paul Oakenfold, The Chemical Brothers, M83, Underworld, Orbital, Arcade Fire, Daft Punk, Trent Reznor etc. -- I love all these imports on the film score scene! It would be a terribly stuffed and dusty scene if there was only the traditional symphonic Hollywood score.

None of those were working at Remote Control, though, with all that brings.

No, but Remote Control isn't really about 'import' artists in the same way. It's a recruitment ground from which some succeed marvelously and some less so.

There have been a few 'import' artists there over the years, though (in addition to JXL) that have been heavily involved in popular music earlier in their career, like Trevor Rabin, Lisa Gerrard and Mark Mancina.

...not like Mr XL, though, at least as far as I remember from people's comments. Most of the sound in those two scores was from Joseph Trapanese, wasn't it? I know Zimmer was involved in some capacity, but thought that was more guidance than anything- not the whole production service as in this 300 score.

Southall wrote
...not like Mr XL, though, at least as far as I remember from people's comments. Most of the sound in those two scores was from Joseph Trapanese, wasn't it? I know Zimmer was involved in some capacity, but thought that was more guidance than anything- not the whole production service as in this 300 score.

Actually, the 300: Rise of an Empire score isn't produced by Hans Zimmer at all. He gets a 'thank you' credit, that's it. Not even Remote Control is mentioned - apart from some RC-favorites like Glennie-Smith and Bruce Fowler on respectively conducting and supervising orchestrator duties. But there're also several from XL's own crew credited, like Michiel Groeneveld for production services.

Having just heard the full score, I can tell you also in sound this isn't much like Zimmer. As expected, at its chore there are several long cues built around rhythmic driven action music clearly with a background of Junkie XL's dance mixes, now with extra layers of persian instruments and orchestra on top (in effect not unlike what Powell did with 'Tangiers' for The Bourne Ultimatum), giving the score a somewhat-yet-also-electronically-processed organic feel. Around these intense and sometimes chaotic moments of propulsive action are interludes of string-driven aftermath sections and soundscapes with traditional or more classic solo vocals laid on top, as you'd expect from certain sword 'n sandal epics.

XL's talents lay mainly in the creation of a distinct sound, either in soundscaping or layering his high-octane action sequences and certainly not in any melodic writing. A great deal of the album's running time consists of building up into the action or winding it down, taking its time to throw the listener into the action but all the while relying on the same motive. It's only at certain moments, specifically in the final act, where he tries to introduce heroic themes, which are coming off a bit clumsily. Which isn't to say there aren't any lovely moments of quite sudden beauty, mainly courtesy of the vocals and the mixing of it. This creation of a sound also comes across in the use of a few quite unusual Persian/Moroccon instruments which will take some getting used to by a Western ear and sound quite out of the mainstream. It's this Persian instrumentation in which he establishes the music's only link with Bates' previous score, at one moment even clearly referencing one of his themes, but otherwise the choir is, for example, completely absent.

I'm sure many traditional score-lovers will dismiss Rise of an Empire as trash, but taken for what it is ('awesome', 'thrilling', 'intense', 'bad-ass') it's actually a quite rough-edged score that is (for me at least) a lot more satisfying than the rather lame effort by Tyler Bates, who tried to get rough at moments but never really followed through (also because of his short tracks, in stark contrast to XL's long tracks with proper build-ups). Also, its structure is quite different from what we come to expect from regular scoring and following the lines of Junkie XL's previous music, making this score far more interesting than, for example, Clinton Shorter's very traditional Pompeii.

BobdH wrote
far more interesting than, for example, Clinton Shorter's very traditional Pompeii.

Interesting you say that score is "traditional" - I went through a thought process earlier while listening to it which went something like this:

This is pretty cool!
It's a bit like Gladiator
Hold on, didn't I used to hate things that sounded a bit like Gladiator?
The 2004 version of me thought film music couldn't get any worse than things that sound a bit like Gladiator
Oh God